


Can't Stop The Feline

by fuzzballsheltiepants



Series: A Mewment Like This [9]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Law Student!Andrew, M/M, More bad flirting via text, Neil is confused, References to fairly bad teen movies, The slow burn is picking up speed guys, Translator!Neil, scar mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 03:54:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17036153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fuzzballsheltiepants/pseuds/fuzzballsheltiepants
Summary: Neil keeps getting hit on and he doesn't understand.  He seeks refuge with Andrew, but that is no less confusing.  Yet another shared meal and an embarrassing confession ensues.





	Can't Stop The Feline

**Author's Note:**

> Neil talks a little more about his scars in this one. Thanks as always to @tntwme for the beta! Any remaining mistakes are my own.

The investor spoke in rapid Mandarin; Neil found himself holding his breath as he listened, then expelling it before translating.  Rhemann nodded and smiled, and Mr. Liu took the pen he was offered. A few more pleasantries, pages initialed and signed, and they were done.

Neil ended up in between Mr. Liu and Rhemann as they walked towards the elevators.  “You did well,” Mr. Liu said. “Are you available tonight? I’d like to take you to dinner, as a thank you.”

Neil translated automatically.  Rhemann cleared his throat. “I think Mr. Liu was addressing you, Neil.”

“Oh.”  Neil shifted back into Mandarin.  “My apologies, sir.”

“Understandable mistake,” Mr. Liu said with good humor.  He was looking at Neil, and it reminded him of that Marissa girl from the pub; his skin crawled.  Maybe Jean and Jeremy were wrong. Maybe Marissa hadn’t wanted to sleep with him, but her reaction to his rejection had certainly indicated she wasn’t just looking to make a friend.  And Mr. Liu’s expression was a little too appreciative. A little too…confident.

Neil blinked at him for what was probably a beat too long before answering with a lie.  “I apologize, I must decline. I have other plans.”

“Ah, well.”  Mr. Liu patted him on the shoulder.  “Next time, then.”

Neil got off the elevator on his floor and sat down at his computer, staring at the screen without seeing it.  After a few moments he shook himself and pulled out his phone. Andrew had barely texted him back since the other night, when he’d come to Neil’s apartment, silently drank one of Nicky’s beers, sat around for half an hour then left.  Neil knew he was busy, that he no doubt had other people he spent time with, people who knew who and what they were, people who weren’t so…messy. He texted him anyway.

_Are you doing anything tonight?_

He wasn’t surprised there wasn’t an immediate response.  Well, if Andrew didn’t get back to him he could probably invite himself over to Nicky’s.  Or talk to Jeremy and Sara, who had been making noise about all of them having a night out.  

“Neil?”  Jean’s voice was soft but Neil startled nonetheless.  “Are you okay?” he asked in French.

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“Rhemann told me what happened, he wanted me to check on you.”

“I’m fine,” Neil said again, puzzled.

“Twice in one week,” Jean said with a small smile as he gathered up his things.  “If either of those people were my type I’d be jealous.” Neil realized what he meant and snorted as he checked the clock; it was already past time to leave.  He followed Jean, checking his phone as he navigated through the cubicles. Still nothing.

There were a few people in the elevator when they reached it, but nobody Neil could name.  He tucked himself behind Jean’s larger frame, keeping his back against the wall. They were almost to the lobby when Neil asked in French, “Are you dating anybody?”

Jean started and looked down at him with a peculiar expression.  “Umm…”

“That wasn’t an invitation.”

The relief in Jean’s eyes was amusing.  Shoulder to shoulder, they walked out into the city, stained orange with the sunset.  It was finally staying light late enough that Neil wasn’t leaving in the pitch black. Soon he’d be able to run outside after work.  He took a deep breath, savoring the whisper of spring in the air. “Since my last relationship ended in disaster I am probably not the right person to ask if you’re looking for advice.”  Jean’s tone was light, but Neil was well versed in detecting the subtle dissonant notes of hidden pain. Pain that increased when he added, “Talk to Jeremy. He goes out with someone new practically every week.”

Yeah, no, that was not the sort of advice Neil needed.  “I’m not looking to get laid.”

Jean’s laughter chased the shadows from his face.  “Fair enough. See you tomorrow.”

Neil turned towards the gym, hoping that running would help as it used to.  Nicky had been on him to do more cross-training, but he didn’t know how to explain that he wasn’t doing this to build his body.  He slipped in with a small crowd of people, unnoticed in the midst of their animated discussion about kombucha, and headed towards the locker room.  Nicky was nowhere to be seen; of course, the one time Neil was hoping to wrangle a dinner invitation. He changed out quickly and stuffed his bag in the locker before heading towards the treadmills.

Nicky’s bray of laughter hit him as he was finishing his warm-up jog and settling in to run.  Neil scanned the mirror in front of him without breaking stride, finally catching a glimpse of curly black hair over by the weight benches.  Nicky was spotting someone on the free weights but didn’t seem to be taking the responsibility all that seriously, judging by the way his hands were visible, gesticulating wildly, in the mirror.  Neil shook his head as he ran. And Nicky wondered why Neil didn’t trust him with his workout.

At least he’d be able to catch him later.  If Andrew didn’t text him back, that was. His mind drifted to Jean; he wondered what had happened to him, and felt a little guilty that he had never asked.  Everyone else was always talking, talking, talking, he rarely found reason or opportunity to ask about their personal lives. But Jean was like him. Neil wondered if he felt as alone as he did so much of the time.

A flash of gold in the mirror caught his eye.  Nicky had moved away from his weight bench and the lifter was sitting up.  It was Andrew; even though Neil could only see the back of his head, he was certain of it.  His feet stumbled on the treadmill and he almost fell, only the grab rails saving him. The clatter of the change in rhythm drew several people’s attention, and he felt a dozen eyes boring into him.  A glance showed him one of the watchers was Andrew. Of course.

He dug his nails into his palms as he re-found his rhythm.  At least he had been running long enough that the color in his cheeks could be attributed to exertion.  When he next checked the mirror Andrew had turned to a machine and was settling in to do something with his legs.  But he didn’t think he was imagining the frequent flashes of hazel eyes meeting his in the mirror.

By the time he finished his seven miles, Andrew was nowhere to be found.  Neil neatly dodged Nicky by blending in with a cluster of women his age, who were talking so loudly they didn’t even notice his presence.  

No sign of Andrew in the locker room either.  Neil grabbed his towel and clothes and ducked into a shower stall.  It made sense, he decided as he stood under the spray. Andrew had probably been there for a while when he got there, and why would he hang around?  

But when he was finished and dressed, Andrew was lounging on one of the benches in the locker room.  Neil didn’t really understand the feeling that surged in his chest when he stopped at the foot of the bench in front of Andrew.  “Hey.”

Andrew held up his phone, Neil’s text on the screen.  “What were you planning?”

“Nothing really.”  He couldn’t keep himself from smiling.  “I told someone I had plans tonight, and I didn’t want it to be a lie.”

“Ah, so I’m your excuse now.”  Andrew stood abruptly, close enough it would have been so easy to reach out and touch him.  Neil shoved his hands in his pockets to keep from giving into the impulse.

“I owe you dinner anyway.”

Andrew hummed, his fingers stealing into his pocket and playing with something.  His cigarettes, Neil guessed. “Let’s go, then,” Andrew finally said.

It took just a second to stuff his gym clothes in his bag and rejoin Andrew.  They started to walk out together, but Neil stopped shy of the locker room door.  “Are we going to tell Nicky we’re...we know each other?”

That damn eyebrow went up.  “I don’t usually tell my cousin about every acquaintance I make.”

His words punched the air out of Neil as efficiently as a fist and twice as painful.  “Oh. Okay.”

Andrew must have read something in Neil’s face; he held up his hand before Neil could turn away, not touching him but a clear signal for Neil to wait.  “I don’t have friends, Neil. I have people I know, and people I fuck. If we tell Nicky he’s going to assume you’re the latter.”

_Oh_.  Thoughts raced through Neil’s head so quickly he couldn’t seize on any of them.  He didn’t know how long he stood there before he finally asked, “Is that such a bad thing?”

Andrew snorted.  “You tell me.”

There was a funny tickling deep in Neil’s gut he didn’t have a name for.  “I don’t care what he assumes. But we can leave separately if you want.”

The look in Andrew’s eyes was impossible to decipher.  “Where are we eating?”

It took Neil a second to redirect his brain.  “Uh. I dunno.” He pulled out his phone and started to search; Andrew swiped it from him after a couple of fruitless moments.

“Never mind.  Follow me.”

Andrew set off across the gym floor, not even looking to see if Neil was behind him.  By some miracle there was no sign of Nicky, and then they were out on the sidewalk and turning away from the part of the city Neil was familiar with.  It was strange, the way people just kind of moved aside for Andrew. Neil was reminded of a scene he had once seen in a book, an overly florid painting of Moses parting the Red Sea.  Though unlike Moses, with his arms thrown wide and an agonized expression on his face, Andrew didn’t even seem to notice the Parting of the Humans. Neil walked in Andrew’s wake, relishing the way nobody brushed against him or even really looked at him.  

He could get used to this, he decided.  Not just the ease in walking through crowds; all of it.  The conversations, the companionship, the feeling of belonging.  The thought should have made him nervous, but he didn’t think the ongoing fluttering in his gut was fear.  Fear was something he was intimately familiar with, an oily creature that had lived coiled within him his whole life, that had only stopped dogging his every breath in the past year.  This was different, and he found himself watching the controlled way Andrew moved, the gleam of his hair under streetlights, the breadth of his shoulders, trying to figure out why everything seemed sideways when it came to his friend.

Andrew turned up a side street, then into a tiny parking area.  Warm light bounced through the front window, illuminating the cracked pavement.  Inside people were moving, sitting, laughing; it was homey in a way that was slightly unsettling to Neil.  The rich aroma of cooking tomatoes and onions hit him, and his stomach gave an answering grumble. Andrew glanced at him without comment before turning to the smiling hostess.

They ended up seated at a tiny table for two near the brick wall in the back.  Italian posters graced the walls, and Neil spent a moment trying to see how many words he could translate.  It was more similar to Spanish than French, he decided, studying the poster over Andrew’s head. He wondered how hard it would be to learn.

“Let me guess,” Andrew said, interrupting Neil mentally mouthing the words.  “You speak Italian.”

“No,” Neil grinned.  “Not yet, at least.”

A waitress appeared with water and a notepad, and Neil picked something at random.  Andrew hadn’t even opened his menu, but evidently he didn’t need to; he recited his order from memory.  The woman disappeared with a smile.

“Come here a lot?”

Andrew shrugged and asked, in lieu of an answer, “So who are you avoiding tonight?”

He played with his water glass, trying to make it sing, while he thought about what to say.  In the end he opted for, “My last client invited me to dinner. But I don’t think he wanted dinner.”  Andrew snorted. “And at trivia night some girl came over and was trying to get me to go home with her.”

Andrew raised that one eyebrow at him.  “This is bothering you.” Neil nodded. “They think you’re attractive.”

“Only because they haven’t seen me without my clothes on.”  Neil realized too late that he had spoken out loud.

“What, do you have a gnome down there?”

Neil laughed.  “Nah, most of the damage ends at my waist.”   _Shut up shut up shut up!_  He never spoke like this, never forgot how to measure his words.  Except to Andrew. Who was looking at him with the same expression he’d had before, unfazed.  “You’re not…”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”  

“I never imagined whoever did that to you stopped at your face.”  He had no particular expression, no odious pity, no horror, no disgust.  Neil suspected that even if he stripped his shirt off right there, that wouldn’t change.  No; he would just look at him with that same quiet understanding that cut to the bone.

Neil looked away; he didn’t want to think about how Andrew knew, about the difference between knowing and _knowing_.  He wished, uselessly, that he could have spared his friend that knowledge.  As if he could have helped someone else when he hadn’t even been able protect himself.

Andrew started talking after a minute, some funny story about one of the lawyers at the office mishearing something during testimony.  Neil laughed in the right places, but his mind wouldn’t stop buzzing. He wondered what Andrew’s history was, and if he would ever trust Neil enough to share it.  Unlike him, Andrew never slipped up and revealed more than he intended; he was always in control. Even if he couldn’t prevent the glimpses of exhaustion and pain that sometimes showed themselves in his eyes, indistinct but recognizable, like the silhouette of a person through drawn curtains.  

When the story ended Neil struggled to come up with something to say, something light and funny, something Jeremy would say, or Sara.  But his brain wouldn’t stop barking questions at him, and he stuffed bread in his mouth to keep from voicing them. Andrew seemed unbothered by his silence, tearing apart his own roll and dipping the pieces in the herbed olive oil that sat between them.

Neil finished his bread and opened his mouth, to say who knew what, really.  What came out was, “You have people you fuck?”

Cool amusement pulled at Andrew’s mouth.  He gave a slow nod, and did not elaborate.  Neil wasn’t even sure he wanted him to; his whole face was burning, and he didn’t know how to respond.  

_Change the subject_ , his brain hissed at him.  “I’m a virgin,” he blurted out.  

The waitress had the misfortune of approaching at that exact moment holding their plates.  She hesitated, looking between them with a mortified expression. “I can come back,” she whispered.

Andrew just waved her closer, and she set the food down and bolted.  With a long-suffering sigh, Andrew swapped the plates. “You astonish me,” he said dryly.  

“I…”  Neil picked up his fork, but bitterness flooded his mouth and he wasn’t sure he could stomach even looking at the food.  He toyed with his utensils for a moment before dropping them back on the table.

“Neil.”  Andrew’s voice was a quiet command, and Neil looked up at him.  “I don’t give a shit if you’ve never laid a finger on someone else, or if one time at band camp you fucked the entire trombone section.”

“I don’t play an instrument.”

Andrew laughed, full out shoulders-shaking, hands on face laughter that seemed to take over his entire being.  Neil had only ever heard him laugh once before, and that had been a quick bark, even more quickly contained. This was almost beautiful, and after a second Neil started to laugh too.  Even if it was at himself; even if he didn’t totally get the joke.

It was over too soon, but Neil felt lighter than he had in days.  The fatigue he had seen dragging at Andrew’s eyes was gone, too. It didn’t make sense, that thirty seconds of laughter could cause such a shift, but Neil would puzzle that out another time.  He dug into the mound of pasta on his plate, suddenly starving.

“I was going to ask you,” Andrew started after a few bites, then paused for Neil to drag himself out of his food.    

“Yeah?” Neil asked warily.

“Not about that.”  Neil laughed again, and Andrew went on.  “I’m going to be doing an externship out of town for a few weeks.  I’m looking for someone to feed Sir while I’m gone, and you’re one of three people who knows where I live.  And your apartment’s a lot closer than Nicky’s.”

Neil’s sluggish brain recognized the question a bit too late.  “Oh. Yeah, of course, I can feed him. Or do you think he’d be okay hanging out with King?”

Andrew shrugged.  “Not sure. The shelter said he was fine with other cats but that he’d prefer to be alone.”

“I wonder if they knew each other.”  

“What?”  There was a flicker of what might have been surprise in Andrew’s eyes, though his expression didn’t change.

“I mean, I know there’s a million shelters in Boston, but I kind of assumed you and Nicky would have gone to the same one.”

Andrew blinked at him for a moment.  “Nicky gave you King.”

“Yeah?  I thought I told you that.”

Andrew shook his head.  Neil tried to dredge up his memories of when they’d talked about it before, but he was coming up blank.  “Is that weird or something?”

“No.  I’m not sure why I’m surprised, actually.  It’s fully in-character for Nicky to give someone a pet they didn’t want.”

“That’s not really fair,” Neil argued.

“Really?  If you wanted a cat, why didn’t you get one for yourself?”

Neil was ready to protest, but Andrew wasn’t wrong.  As much as he adored King now, he remembered being more than a little annoyed when Nicky had shown up with a terrified, wide-eyed ball of fluff in a carrier and a pile of equipment.  He had almost told Nicky to take her back, but there was something too familiar about the way she was curled in on herself, silently monitoring every movement, searching for an escape route that didn’t exist.

It had taken her two days to come out from under the bed.  After four, she had decided Neil was not a threat; after a week, she rarely left his side when he was home.  He had come to welcome her lightweight warmth next to him in bed, reaching out to touch her when he had a nightmare, the vibration of her purr sending him back to sleep more often than not.

Andrew took his silence as confirmation.  “That’s what I figured.”

“But I’m glad he did.”  He didn’t say that he felt like he had unconsciously mirrored her.  That as she had come out of her shell and started exploring, he had done the same.  That if it weren’t for her, in more ways than one, he wouldn’t be here right now, with Andrew.  He wouldn’t be wondering, wondering.

“Just because his misguided good intentions occasionally work out doesn’t change the fact that he oversteps his bounds.”

“Like he does with you?”  It shot out of Neil’s mouth with more vehemence than he intended, but that almost-smile quirked Andrew’s mouth again.

“Exactly like that.”

They finished their food and the conversation naturally slipped into something less vital.  The waitress brought their check; she reminded Neil of his cat with the way she slunk up and skittered away.  Neil checked the amount, did some quick math, and dropped some cash to cover with a generous tip. “I think I traumatized her for life.”

“If that’s the worst thing she’s ever heard while waitressing, she’s lived a sheltered life.”

The walk to the subway was a peaceful kind of quiet.  Likewise the ride. There was a group of kids in their subway car, pushing and laughing and teasing each other. One of them started rapping, and two others joined in; the trio shifted into singing with the ease of people who have done this a thousand times, their voices lifting and dropping in bright harmony.  

Neil glanced at Andrew; his face was impassive, even bored; but his eyes were following the kids as they bounced the lyrics off each other and Neil could see it.  That he too knew how rare and precious this was. That he too was used to being on the outside looking in.

His stop was coming up and he thought about saying something, but then the announcer came on and the train was stopping and the door was opening, and he was hesitating.  Andrew gestured with his chin, a movement so small it would have been easily missed, and Neil ducked his head against his growing smile and finally slipped through the doors just before they slid closed.

King gave him her usual frantic greeting, and Neil cuddled her just a little bit tighter, burying his fingers in her thick fur.  After feeding her he sat on the floor and played with the fishing pole toy he had found, with the bright pink feathers she seemed to love.  His phone buzzed as she was winding down, laying on the feathers more than chasing them. Andrew. He wondered how it had happened that they could spend an hour together and have it not be enough.

_Do u really think ur scars are unattractive_

He stared at the phone until King started tugging at the toy again.  With one thumb he texted back _They are though_

Three dots appeared, disappeared, reappeared.

_I will prove u wrong_

It felt like a challenge.  Neil had no idea how to respond; he had too many memories of people flinching, too many averted eyes.  Before he could settle on something, King grabbed onto the stretchy string of the toy and bolted, ripping the pole out of Neil’s slackened grip.  She trotted away, head held proudly, and Neil laughed as she dragged the toy up into her cat tower. Still chuckling, he picked up his phone.

_Challenge accepted_.

**Author's Note:**

> This one took freaking forever to get right, my brain kept wanting to make it super dark and that is not my intention for this series. We'll be starting to see other perspectives soon, and there is a little hint as to who the first one is going to be from in this one! As always comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!! HMU on Tumblr or Pillowfort, @fuzzballsheltiepants, if you like


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